| 課程目標 |
財政學的主要內容在探討政府（公共部門）的經濟行為。因此，財政學又被稱為公共經濟學。由此可知，財政學實為經濟學之一環。就研究範圍與最終目標而言，經濟學追求資源的最適配置，強調私人部門利益。財政學則是研究政府部門的運作並佐以經濟學的分析，以全體社會褔利極大化為最終目的，換言之，財政學一方面探討政府的經濟行為，另一方面則是研究如何透過政府的力量使全體社會達到最適化。 |
Objectives |
The study of public finance is challenging, as it combines both normative and positive economic analysis. On the one hand, it seeks to answer the question: What should the role of the public sector be in influencing resource allocation in a market economy? The determination of a set of normative rules to guide public sector decision-making requires making use of the tools of modern welfare economics. As such, one might classify public finance as applied welfare economics. On the other hand, public finance involves the positive study of how the activities of government (e.g. taxation, expenditures, transfers) influence resource allocation, relative prices, and welfare in the economy. The sheer size and pervasiveness of the public sector ensure that it will play a significant role in determining how the economy’s resources will be allocated by the pricing mechanism. In the positive analysis of the effects of public sector decision-making, it must be recognized that government actions will influence prices and outputs on several markets simultaneously. In other words, a satisfactory analysis of the impact of public sector decisions on the economy must take into consideration some of the general equilibrium effects of the actions. |